Clive Cussler: Devil's Gate

As soon as he was able, Kurt made contact with Katarina, arranging to meet her back on Santa Maria.

After all that had transpired, the U.S. and Russian governments had agreed that items aboard the Constellation rightly belonged to the Russian people. Both sides agreed that it would be appropriate if Kurt and Katarina supervised the dives to retrieve them.

Katarina beamed when she saw him, and she kissed him long and hard as soon as they met up despite the presence of a small audience.

A few days later they were out on a chartered dive boat with representatives from the Russian and U.S. governments on board keeping an eye on the proceedings.

After one dive as a run-through, they went down to retrieve the stainless steel trunks. Using torches to free them from the Constellation’s floor reminded Kurt of Joe’s narrow escape.

He realized they wouldn’t have survived had this old wrecked aircraft and its oxygen bottle not been here. After moving the cases outside the aircraft and attaching them to floats, which were inflated with air from their tanks, Kurt went back inside and swam up to the cockpit.

He reached for the copilot’s dog tags, which still dangled around the man’s skeletal neck. He gently pulled them free and then swam from the plane.

Surfacing, he climbed aboard the dive boat. Katarina was already working on cutting the lock off one of the stainless steel cases.

It broke and fell to the deck. Katarina opened the trunk.

Despite the tight seal, all these years on the bottom had allowed sediment and water to seep inside. At first all they saw was murky water, but Katarina dipped her hand into it and pulled out a necklace of large white pearls.

She placed the necklace on the deck and reached in again carefully. This time, she retrieved a tiara that looked as if it were encrusted with diamonds.

A representative from the Russian historical society stood by. Seeing this, he stepped forward. With careful precision he took the tiara and began to smile.

“Exquisite,” the bespectacled man said. “And almost unbelievable. But it is certain now.”

He held up the tiara. “This was worn by Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas the Second,” he said. “She was photographed in it in 1915. It disappeared, along with many other jewels, when the Tsar fell to the revolution.”

Kurt looked over at him. “I thought all the Tsar’s treasures had been found.”

“Yes and no,” he said. “The treasures they were known to possess were discovered long ago. Indeed, many jewels were sewn into their clothing to hide them from the guards. Both Anastasia and her sisters were shot and stabbed to no effect because their clothing was so stuffed with precious stones that they were all but bulletproof.”

“I figure you have those,” Kurt said. “So where did these come from?”

“The Tsar’s fortunes were so vast, the extent of his wealth was never really cataloged,” the man said. “For political reasons, the Soviets insisted that all the wealth had been collected and placed in trust for the people. The Russian government that succeeded the Soviet one continued this charade, but many photographs from that era display treasures that were never discovered. It was long assumed they had been lost to history. Who would have thought that both your government and mine knew where some of them were?”

Kurt considered what the man was saying. It didn’t bother him that the jewels would be going back to Russia, he just wondered how they’d left Moscow in the first place.

“How’d they end up here?” he asked.

“I can tell you that,” a wavering voice said.

Kurt turned. While he and Katarina were down below on the dive, a new arrival had come aboard. Kurt knew who he was and had requested he be found and offered the chance to be present.

Kurt stepped up and shook the man’s hand.

“Katarina,” Kurt said, “members of the Russian government, meet Hudson Wallace.”

Wallace stepped forward, moving slowly. He had to be almost ninety, though he still looked like the kind of guy who could thump you if you got out of line. He wore a bright red Hawaiian shirt, tan cargo shorts, and boat shoes with ankle socks.

He fixed his eyes on Katarina and smiled from ear to ear.

“My copilot and I picked up a fellow in Sarajevo,” he said. “A political refugee named Tarasov.”

“He was a criminal,” the Russian man said, “who took the jewels after burying them with three other soldiers years before.”

“Sure, sure,” Wallace said. “One man’s criminal is another man’s freedom fighter. Anyway, we whisked him out of there and brought him to Santa Maria, where we were supposed to fuel up and hop across the pond. But we got grounded by a storm, and some of their agents found us.”

He shook his head sadly. “Tarasov was shot in the back. My copilot, Charlie Simpkins, was killed as well. I was wounded. I managed to take off, but an electrical storm, a couple engine failures, and loss of blood brought me down. I lost control of the plane and hit the sea. To this day I don’t remember how I got out.”

“You know,” Kurt said, “that story was part of the reason we believed in this hoax.”

Wallace laughed, and his face crinkled up. “In those days things like that happened all the time. Instruments iced up, gauges froze, you couldn’t tell up from down.”

“But what about the engine failure?” Katarina asked.

“I had a hard time figuring that myself,” Wallace said. “We kept those babies in prime condition. Then it hit me. It rained there for three solid days. We fueled the Connie from their ground tanks. I think we sucked up a bunch of water when we took on five hundred gallons of the stuff the day before we left. Damn bad luck, if you ask me.”

Kurt nodded as Hudson looked down at the tiara and the necklace.

“For sixty years I always wondered what was in those boxes,” he said. “I guess they’re filled to the top.”

Katarina smiled at him kindly. “You’ll be able to see them in a museum, I’m sure,” she said.

“No thanks, miss,” he replied. “I came for something much more valuable.” He turned to Kurt. “Were you able to get ’em?”

Kurt reached into his pocket and retrieved the dog tags he’d pulled off the copilot. Wallace looked at them with reverence as if they were made of the purest gold.

“A Navy team is coming out tomorrow,” Kurt said. “Charlie will be buried in Arlington next week. I’ll be there.”

“You?”

“You lost a friend here,” Kurt said. “But in a way you and your copilot saved a friend of mine. We’ll both be there. We owe you that much and more.”

“A long time to come home,” Wallace said.

Kurt nodded. Yes, it was.

“I’ll see you there,” Wallace said. He smiled at Katarina, thumbed his nose at the Russian expert, and walked back to the boat he’d motored in on. It took a moment for him to climb aboard. Once there, Wallace grabbed a wreath and held it out. Then, with a gentle toss, he laid it out on the water.

THREE DAYS LATER, after finishing the recovery and spending forty-eight hours with Katarina that actually qualified as R & R, Kurt was back in the States.

Katarina denied it, but he had a sneaking suspicion she’d enjoyed her time as a spy of sorts. They promised to meet again someday, and Kurt wondered if it would happen first from careful planning or at random in some out-of-the-way place with a swirl of international intrigue unfolding. Either way, he looked forward to it.

He wandered by the NUMA headquarters and found the place empty for the weekend. A message from Joe told him to go home.

Heading the advice, he made his way back to his boathouse on the Potomac.

Suspiciously, he detected the scent of marinated steaks grilling on a barbecue emanating from his own deck. He walked around to the back of the boathouse.